Nokia 7.1 vs Huawei Mate 20 Lite vs Honor Play: Which is best?

Over the past few weeks, we have seen some excellent affordable mid-range phones released with the three stand out options, in my opinion, is the Nokia 7.1, Huawei Mate 20 Lite and the Honor Play.

While I have not used all three phones, whichever you choose will likely be a great option, I think they are all well specced for the money.

If you are on the lookout for an affordable mid-range phone, you may wonder how these three models differ and which one is best for your needs. Hopefully, the below will help shed some light.

Huawei Mate 20 Lite

As it currently stands, the Huawei Mate 20 Lite is the most expensive option at £379, I have reviewed this phone and can vouch that it is excellent. You get the latest mid-range system on chip from HiSilicon the Kirin 710 which is an octa-core chip with a variety of AI features. This is combined with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.

At 6.3-inches it is quite large but thanks to the slim bezels and 81.7% screen-to-body ratio it doesn’t feel too big in your hand. There is an impressive 3750 mAh battery which I found comfortably lasted me over a day.

The cameras are probably its main selling point, and you get a 20 MP f/1.8 lens with a 2MP depth sensor on the rear. The front has 24 MP f/2.0 with a 2MP depth sensor.

It comes with Android 8.1 (Oreo) installed, but Huawei is quite good at doing regular updates, so it should be updated to Android Pie soon. The software is heavily skinned with EMUI 8.2 which some people are not fond of and it does have some aggressive battery management features.

Honor Play

The Honor Play is £90 less and has a more powerful Hisilicon Kirin 970 SoC which is a year old now, but still excellent; my Mate 10 Pro still runs perfectly today. A lot of the specification matches up with the Mate 20 Lite, and you get 64 GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, the same 3750 mAh battery and a similar screen specification of 6.3 inches with 83.0% screen-to-body ratio.

It is not quite as well specced in the camera department as you get a 16MP f/2.2 lens with 2MP depth sensor, then on the front a single 16MP f/2.0 lens.

Similar to the Mate 20 Lite this comes with Android 8.1 (Oreo) that is modified with EMUI 8.2

Nokia 7.1

Released last week the Nokia 7.1 is definitely going to sell well this year, priced at £299 it is a little more expensive than the Honor Play. Nokia also uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC this is slightly lower specced than the Kirin 710 found on the Mate 20 lite, but in real-world usage, I doubt you would notice the difference.

This has a much smaller 5.84-inch display with an 80% screen to body ratio, which will make it a popular choice for people that are not fond of huge phones.

The £300 option only has 32GB of internal storage, but this is expandable via microSD. It also has slightly less RAM than the other options at just 3GB.

The rear camera specification is 12 MP f/1.8 with 5 MP f/2.4 and on the front your get 8 MP f/2.0.

The battery is only 3060 mAh but with the mid-range chip, you should still get a days use out of it.

The main selling point for the Nokia is its use of Android One. It comes shipped with Android 8.1 Oreo but Android 9.0 Pie is due to be pushed out to it shortly. With Android One there are no modifications to the Android system, and you get three years of security updates and regular features updates which are only a little slower being released than Pixel phones.

Overall

All three phones will make a great choice, being priced similarly I would not say anyone stands out from another.

If you have a specific usage scenario or personal preferences, then each phone has appealing aspects.

The Huawei Mate 20 Lite is a great affordable phone for photography, especially selfies, and the battery will keep you going for well over a day.

The Honor Play is marketed as a gaming phone, and the inclusion of the Kirin 970 makes it excellent at precisely that. It sacrifices a couple of features in favour of a much more powerful processor over the other options. Just like the Mate 20 Lite, it has a superb battery size.

The Nokia 7.1 may not match up to the other models in raw specs but Android One is fantastic and a major selling point. While I have grown to like EMUI, I would still prefer no modifications to the software, and guaranteed updates.

About The Author

I am a UK tech blogger and have been in the industry for over 10 years now running Mighty Gadget, its sister sites and contributing to other sites around the web. I am passionate about all tech including mobile, wearable, and home automation. I am also a fitness fanatic so cover as much fitness tech as possible. Follow me on Strava

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Please note that when possible if I link to an Amazon product or another retailer, I will use an affiliate link. This helps me cover the cost of running the site and does not affect my review of the product. I will always do my best to link to the cheapest option though I would always recommend looking around yourself as my prices don’t get updated often.